Metastable trigonal SnP: A promising anode material for potassium-ion battery

Potassium-ion batteries (PIBs) have attracted great interest due to their high-energy-density and low-cost. The lack of stable anode material greatly limits the quick development of PIBs. Phosphorus-metal compounds are regarded as a class of materials with promising prospects as anode material for PIBs with a low operating voltage and high conductivity. Among them, due to the challenging synthesis method, the application of SnP is limited. Herein, a facile approach to synthesize trigonal SnP@C through alloying red phosphorus with tin on carbon material is reported. It is found that carbon substrate can largely reduce vibrational and configurational entropies, playing a critical role on the formation of metastable SnP. When applied as anode in PIBs, the SnP@C composite delivers a high reversible capacity of 478.1 mAh.g(-1) at 50 mA g(-1) and a stable cycling performance at 1000 mA g(-1). The good electrochemical performance is associated with the SnP@C as well as the carbon, which could suppress the phase separation during charge/discharge process to maintain structural stability. This work may open a new avenue for low-cost synthesis of metastable phases for advanced energy storage systems. (C) 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd.